


The Craft of the Wise

by PinkRangerV



Category: Power Rangers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Final Battle, Gen, General Awesomeness, Magic, rebirth of the Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2586497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkRangerV/pseuds/PinkRangerV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Power is stripped from them, but the Rangers continue on...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Craft of the Wise

**Author's Note:**

> *shrugs* I like this plot bunny.

_Tommy_

They were camping on the beach. It was the most logical place. The Warstar had taken huge chunks of the city.

 

It was Tommy’s watch, and he couldn’t concentrate.

 

The battle in the skies above him--NASADA leading NATO’s space defense forces, forces that should _never have been needed_ , why were they needed--was visible in the night sky, a battle of lasers and explosions and color and death. It could be beautiful.

 

A lot of things could be beautiful.

 

Tommy glanced at the Dino Rangers. They were sleeping peacefully at the edge of the cave, because they didn’t want to be away from him. Even Trent was clinging to him, after every mistake he’d made with him. They were more like his children than his team.

 

They were going to die.

 

It was the nature of the Power--when a villain called on it, even accidentally, the Power called heroes to stop them. The Warstar, somehow, had called on so much of it they required the entirety of the Earth Ranger Corps to stop it--and _to_ stop it, the Power had to be stripped from their enemies.

 

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

 

They all were going to die. Tommy couldn’t really feel much about his own death, or even his teammates’, but the Dino Rangers...they were his _children_ , his _world_ , how could they…

 

And he couldn’t stop it.

 

“Want me to take a turn?”

 

Tommy glanced at the Silver Ranger. Orion. He’d come from who knew where, he was borderline homeless--Tommy had heard Ryan offer his own home to Orion, when…

 

But Orion would never be able to accept that offer.

 

“The fighting looks pretty.” Orion said, nodding at the sky. Something inside Tommy snapped, gently, and he just nodded and made some soothing noises about how he was just going for a walk, then, needed to clear his head…

 

He left and looked for something to beat up.

 

He was expecting a Warstar soldier, a...what were the new Rangers calling them? Mooger? Booger? Something like that. It would be satisfying to just beat something to a pulp with his bare hands…

 

Hunh. He’d never noticed that cave before.

 

The beach was set next to a geologically active area. There were lava tunnels and caves everywhere through the beach, some rising to the surface, some below. They weren’t in Angel Grove, after all; this battle was near Reefside, in the hopes that Mesegog’s network of invisiportals could buy them a little time and confusion. Anton was already pulling his all-nighter trying to manipulate the wormholes into causing chaos among the Warstar.

 

Tommy felt a strange...pull.

 

He studied the hole in the ground, then carefully climbed into it, dropping to the ground.

 

There was a soft glow in the center.

 

Tommy walked forward carefully, curiously. It...felt like _power_ , like _the_ Power…

 

It registered him. It did not offer a greeting.

 

Tommy fled.

 

***

 

The battle was raging around him.

 

He could see them, his children, fighting Warstar monsters well enough to make him proud. He could almost feel every blow they took himself.

 

He could see the new Rangers, struggling to keep their heads metaphorically above water, untrained and clueless, battling like seasoned warriors.

 

He could see his friends, not a step slower than in high school.

 

He could see the entire Earth Ranger Corps, for one single second, before the first light went out.

 

It was Ryan, and Dana was the next to die, screaming for her brother. Taylor, on the other end of the battlefield, was pierced with two swords and still tried to lop off a monster’s head--

 

_No. No, oh god, no--_

 

The cave.

 

Tommy didn’t know he was running for it until he felt Kira die, the Power hypersensitive, singing through his blood the way it looked like it was singing through Troy’s. He wasn’t collapsed on his knees, though; he was desperate, driven by some powerful instinct to run, run to the cave and drop in and charge at the Power--

 

It embraced him bodily as he screamed.

 

_This is the way of things._

 

“No! No it’s not! There are _children_ out there! _Children dying for you_!”

 

_And what would you like, little human? To change fate?_

 

“Stop this! Bring them _back_!”

 

_Ahahahahaha. No, human. This is the way--_

 

“Take our memories instead!”

 

_…_

 

“It’s the same thing! If we don’t remember, it’s as good as dying, right? Take that.”

 

_...Interesting. I underestimated you, little human man._

 

“Please.”

 

_Very well._

 

And then the world went dark.

 

***

 

_Cam_

...So he was a Power Ranger?

 

He studied the computer images. It had been about a month since he’d woken up in the hospital, amnesiac, and his father had said he didn’t need to worry about where the missing years went--just try and heal. But he wasn’t a total idiot. _Something_ had happened. He wanted to know what.

 

He considered.

 

Everyone knew there had been Power Rangers. They’d all died defeating the Warstar, and the resulting wave of energy had killed most of the Warstar left, crippling their army. Looked like they hadn’t actually _died_. Just…

 

Just what?

 

Cam shut his eyes, sighing. Meditation wasn’t bad exactly, but when he tried to access his memories, he always had to struggle with it. They felt almost slippery, as if they were trying to hide from him. He needed to know, though. There were other Rangers, and they were probably just as lost as he--

 

His phone rang.

 

Cam was going to _kill_ whoever called him. “Hello?”

 

_“Hey, you probably don’t remember me, but I’m Haley Ziktor. I, uh, this is gonna sound crazy, but we were friends when, um, you had amnesia.”_

 

...Say _what_ now?

 

“...I’m listening.”

 

***

 

_Karone_

Power Rangers.

 

In her childhood, that would have been said with exasperation. Now, after a month and a half homeless with no one but Andros--her _brother_ , they had the same locket, _she had found her brother_ \--it was…

 

Awed.

 

It had...challenged her, learning that the United Alliance of Evil was destroyed. That she had no taint of darkness in her magic, that she had _changed_ , gotten nearly a decade older. This was why. She’d been a Power Ranger.

 

Power Rangers weren’t really that uncommon in galactic terms. Most planets had them. But most planets were interacting with the rest of the galaxy, too, and Earth really wasn’t. The most it did was lock the metaphorical door and batten down the hatches; NASADA and NATO were the primary defenses of Earth. It showed, too. Aside from the occasional immigrant, the vast majority of what came to Earth these past months were threats, and Earth was still cleaning up after the Warstar.

 

There had to be a way to keep that from happening. Earth’s lack of respect came purely from its military capabilities; a single defense force would be enough to tip the balance. A defense force like the Power Rangers…

 

Karone climbed up into the tree her brother had been sleeping in, her muscles a little sore from hauling boxes around. “Andros?”

 

“Hey.” Andros had been up all night working at the docks--the first steady paycheck either of them had, and combined with what Karone had earned, hopefully enough for a hotel room for the night. “I’m up.”

 

Karone handed him the postcard. It had images of the Galaxy Rangers on it.

 

Andros blinked, then looked at her, then at the postcard again.

 

“We need to find the other Rangers.” Karone told him.

 

Andros nodded. “Yeah. We really do.”

 

***

 

_Jason_

How the hell had they come to this?

 

He’d figured out who most of the Rangers were by now, but holy crap, most of them were pretty much screwed over by losing the Power. He’d done what he could, but looking over the crowd of college kids in his living room, it…

 

Well, it didn’t feel like _enough_.

 

It shouldn’t have been this way. They should have been in touch, working with each other and getting college funds set up for the kids and...it shouldn’t have come to this, all of them scattered and amnesiac and sometimes homeless or futureless.

 

Someone knocked on his door.

 

Karone looked thinner, wilder than he remembered--not that Jason remembered well anyway. Andros was with her, and he definitely looked groggy, like he was awake too early. Karone’s voice was as strong as ever, though. “Hi, Mr. Scott. We need to talk.”

 

Jason held out his hand, welcoming and greeting. “Call me Jason.”

 

***

 

_Udonna_

This was something she never would have come up with alone, but...well, it made a good deal of sense.

 

She’d at least had her Rangers close to hand when the Power rejected them. Briarwood was accepting and welcoming; they’d known who and what they were as soon as they’d gotten out of the hospital. But this…

 

“We know the Power was a combination of magic and technology.” Cam told her. Exactly as it had been in her visions. “So I thought, maybe we can use the same principles and come up with our own version. Karone says the Rangers are pretty important anyway, and I’d like my memories back.”

 

Exactly as she had in her visions, Udonna nodded. “Yes. I think I can help with that.” She looked over Haley, Billy, Cam, Rose, Noah. “How much do you know about magic?”

 

***

 

_Trent_

This really wasn’t what anyone wanted to find out over Thanksgiving.

 

Trent ducked as another explosion rocked the island, shaking loose bits of ceiling. Why did his dad have to experiment on _himself_? Why couldn’t he have just left the Power _alone_?

 

Trent heard footsteps and started running again.

 

Better question: Why did his dad have to become a _Power Ranger_?

 

***

 

_Kimberly_

They stood gathered in Jason’s basement.

 

It was the closest they had to the Command Center...no. It was a _new_ command center, and this time, even if there was no Zordon, there was community instead. This was where the magic of Earth would build new, better Rangers.

 

This time, there would be no overload. No amnesia. Only magic that could be trusted.

 

Cam handed her a silver bracelet with a clear quartz stone in it. The second she put it on, the quartz turned red.

 

She could feel the flames rising inside her, and let out a laugh of pure joy.

 

“Okay, guys. We’ve got Zedd attacking downtown Angel Grove.” Jason said, all business, his strong green Earth element like an aura around him. “Let’s do this.”

 

They all raised their morphers with a cry.

 

_“It’s morphin’ time!”_

 

 


End file.
